These are a series of 11 posts, originally published in 2004 and 2005 on the blog Drifting Sands.
They are reproduced here in the order they were written.
A New Year’s Eve Without.
She told me one day, over lunch, about 4 months into the nightmare, that she had lost her only friend. The conversation meandered on, as these conversations do, avoiding the unsaid, and saying the things that have no meaning. This phrase came back again before the end and eventually provoked the question.
The answer was one of those that cuts to the heart in spite of all the hatred that flowed around. The answer made for a sensation of wonder as to why she had done that which provoked the loss in the first place, and at the same time a guilty hope that it would never happen to the person it was addressed to.
Fat chance; loose a friend like that and not really understand why, leaves no answer at all, just a deep sadness that it has happened and a longing for them to be back. A hopeless longing and one that piles up on all the rest of the longings we have at this time of the year; on a New Year’s Eve without.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 12/31/2004 04:16:00 PM
Into the five.
Any reflections on the four? Any new news from the past? Anything happen at all in the months that ran away and never came back? Into the five with sixty thousand gone and rising. Is that a good way to go, or does it not matter at all? He cares, they care, they all care in some way, or do they? We do care as the past is all we have got. No present, no future memoirs can we have, only the past sitting there, smiling, laughing, shouting, crying, screaming and dying like some half remebered face of ourselves. Until it’s all gone and we join the memories of those who follow behind us.
Bring on the five and we will have a great, jolly good time! Don’t you think?
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 12/29/2004 02:54:00 PM
Dark Nights, Clear Days.
In a city by a lake, in a place nearby, in a house on high, he lived alone waiting for that one person to arrive. In the bar below, and in the mountains above, and in all places he watched and waited. In the shops, in the streets where the arches framed their windows, and in the square where the people watchers were. In the cars that went by, at the lights as you watch the others. On the corniche where the families walked, and on the hill where you could see everything. He saw her once, behind the glass doors, on the day she did not arrive.
At the mountain top you can look down and see all that you need, everything spread out below. All the places they had been to, and all the things they had seen. Up there the sounds of the city drift up like silent images suddenly come to life, and you are neither there nor with them, only alone in your mind.
He flew away from the city by the lake, and he looked out of the window, down through the cold winter’s night, and saw far below shining lights where she was. The messages were good, flowing backwards and forwards, with breaks in between, and hope in the middle. So back he went to the city by the lake to wait once again. The long months passed with many plans, so much hope, until that hope broke everything, on the day he waited once again and saw her standing behind the glass doors. On the day she did not arrive.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 12/26/2004 08:54:00 PM
Which Way to Christmas.
Which is the way to Christmas, he asked? It’s the place that is green and white, and red, full of lights and boxes wrapped in bright paper; the place where they smile and laugh and be merry, he was told. Oh right, he said, that place, the one you look at like from above, or see it in your mind, shining brightly, like colored stars fallen on the land.
Can you see it now? Can you see it gleaming just over there? If you run fast enough you will catch it before it moves on. Be quick, he was told, for it will soon be gone, and this one will never be back, never come this way again! What are you waiting for? Why do you want to miss it again?
Which way this Christmas? he asked again. Which way this place you describe so cheerfully? Too late, it’s nearly gone, he was told, too late to go back, move on to the next and don’t be late this time. Don’t be late, as each moment in time is the only one you will get, and as I said, they never come this way again.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 12/23/2004 10:18:00 PM
Paris in Winter - A Digression.
Do you remember Paris in winter, the Sandman was asked? Early in the morning when the street cleaners were still hosing down, and the water was diverted into the drains by rolled up tubes of black cloth? Do you remember the first café at the bistro on the corner, paid for when francs still jingled in an intellectuals pocket? No wallets, or watches either were allowed for them. The first café, always taken standing at the bar, along with the first cigarette of the day, stubbed out on the floor, where the crushed sugar packets lay; do you remember, he asked?
Do you remember the walk through Les Halles, deserted and wind swept silent after the night’s animation? The church where they buried him one hot summer day, standing dark and cold, as the first workers stream out of the Metro, indifferent to it’s grander. Do you remember the first tax on your cigarette, willingly given as that was the form, to the dark young face that suddenly looms in front of you? The monstrous black pile of a sleeper on the hot air grill, who never woke, even as you stepped over him; do you remember he asked again?
They have a redesigned Les Halles, he said, and put a skating rink up the Eiffel Tower, and the City of Lights shines brighter than before; you should see it. The Sandman assured him that he would check it all out the next time he's there, but then he asked him who still remembers the name of the man buried in the church that hot summer’s day? Do you remember? He never answered, but The Sandman remembers; he always will.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 12/21/2004 01:48:00 AM
Forever Young.
We used to say that it was difficult to make sense of what is going on in the world. It was too difficult to find out and track down that obscure piece of information. Too hard to really get an idea what everyone was thinking without buying a whole host of newspapers, magazines and religiously listening to the news on the TV or radio every day or night.
Now we have information overload on the Net, with breaking news emails, RSS feeds and desk top news tickers. Where is the filter? Well, it’s where it always was: in your brain. The Sandman thinks that initially one gets the feeling, as we rack up the levels of information we receive, that the brain crashes, and we would like to let it stay idle for a long moment before re-booting and plugging in to the information network again.
But what if the brain adapts, as it will and has always done? We get plugged in and start to handle with ease this so-called information overload. We start to see the patterns in the waves of news. We start to see the shifts in those patterns, the eddies and the whirls. The truths and untruths that cause breaks in the flow. Easier to see now because we have so much information.
One must teach the brain to stay young and alert, and we will get glimmers of what the future holds in these clouds of news and information. In these billions of bits that make up our world on the Net.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 12/21/2004 01:46:00 AM
Michael Jackson – Sympathy for the Moonwalker. (Thoughts between the News)
Driving along the ocean, up the east coast, the local classic hits radio station was playing “ Bad”, followed up by “Billie Jean” from the Thriller album. At the end of the song the DJ said that whatever Jackson has done to himself, whatever we believe or do not believe about his tastes, about his extravagances and his lifestyle; whatever all that, man, that was good music! 45 million Thriller albums of it all.
Makes one think, makes one sad for all those days lost dancing on the Moon.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 12/20/2004 11:44:00 PM
Another lonely day.
The song played and so young she danced. Twirling round and round to the music. We all watched in wonder as the music took the little one away on her day so long ago. She grew strong and cleaver, and never had any difficulty learning that which the others did so much. All through those years of moves and chaos, arguments and bitter words, she always had an answer to nasty remarks that were spat from the lips of the other one.
They say that when he left it was the beginning of her formative years, and so how she must have suffered inside, but she never showed it. He did think twice. He thought many times about it, but he could do nothing to prevent it even though he tried, he tried so hard. Another day in paradise that does no good.
Her day has come back, as they always have to, and still he sees her dancing. Sees her turning as he watches from afar. Watches as the useless years go by and another lonely day passes in paradise, and he misses more of her time that he will never get back, never to watch her dance on her day once again.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 1/18/2005 01:32:00 PM
Il pagliaccio.
There is a foot on top of a monitor that came from a clown. Well not really a clown, but a puppet clown that she made when she was still at junior school in days long ago when all was happy and bright. There is a photo on a balcony of her holding the clown, looking very proud that she had made it out of paper mache and all.
The blue plastic foot has been on top of the monitor for many a year. It manages to find it’s way there with each change of location, each shift of the screen. The pagliaccio from the photo has long gone, and it’s foot rests there in dumb testimony. It was saved from the trash heap by the one who cares about these things, from the one who always threw away the things we loved.
Do we dance to the death of a clown? Do we care the puppet man has gone? Do we look at all that remains, a foot of blue resting there to remind him with a glance that stabs to the heart?
Il pagliaccio….who was the real clown? He will forever wonder.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 1/30/2005 01:02:00 PM
Rabadan.
He remembers it as if it where this morning, the first time he was free, floating through the bitter cold night between the crowds. The Carnival crowds that take over the city and turn the ancient, twisty alleyways into rivers of faces, masks and eyes. Pass the marques blasting out wonderful EuroHouse, down into a bar basement to dance to seventies music and then out into the night, and back to the squares through the rivers of people, light and sound.
On and on you go until the first train starts at five in the morning, hauling the weary off to bed. As the first municipal cleaners hit the streets in a frantic effort to clear up before normal human traffic arrives in the day lit streets. To make them ready for the night once again.
Round and round you went, driven inside for another beer, another dance or just to get warm. On and on you went, until the masked faces all looked the same and the carnival bands seemed to play house music, and the marques thumped to hand held drums. Nobody cared who you were, and you did not care about them as Rabadan spun you away.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 2/08/2005 01:08:00 PM
Les Clochards - The Tramps.
Most big cities in in the world have there fair share of tramps and homeless people, and Paris is no exception. In the current French vernacular they are called S.D.F's - Sans Domicle Fix - which is the official French bureaucratic term for the homeless that has surprisingly entered into the everyday language. The term itself reflects the bleak reality of the status of such unfortunate people, since not having a fixed address makes getting social security or just plain money to live very difficult; no fixed address equals no bank account, which in term means no where for the bureaucrats to pay the social security in to.
These SDF's seem to be every where but that is perhaps an illusion to someone who has not been back to Paris for a long while.
There's the Eastern European lady on her knees at the entrance to the Metro. Her hands outstretched, never saying a word. There is the old man, nicely turned out in his summer clothes, in the underground passage, holding a brown cardboard sign that says " Just one Euro please, so I can eat". There's the young boy sprawled on the ground asleep or worse, with a similar sign lying next to him, except his says "50 cts is fine", not that he seems to care, as he does not wake up even as the young girls drops coins into his the paper cup.
There are the drunks sitting on the Metro benches, but they don't ask for money, they just glare at the people waiting for the train with alcohol red eyes and faces, occasionally swearing loudly but then no one takes the slightest bit of notice; after all, they are only tramps.
There's the young Arab girl, her black shawl nearly covering her face as she bows her head in shame. But she looks up with anger and gratitude in her eyes as you drop coins into her hand.
There's a middle aged man who sits on the stairs, on the steps of a building near the Opera, two minutes walk from the office. Another person neatly turned out in what seems to be fresh clothes and a tie, with his head in his hands, eyes once more downcast in shame. At his feet is the familiar brown cardboard sign and next to it is a palstic cup. And you look at him as you pass and think, "but for the grace of God, there sit I".
Yes, we are lucky you and I.
Paris
Monday 15 August, 2005.
# posted by Kim Rampling @ 11/21/2005 08:23:00 PM
